General Council of the International Working Men’s Association, 256, High Holborn, London, W.C. 10 May 1870.  

Dear Fred,  

Yesterday received the enclosed scrap from Wilhelm. An incorrigible South German lout. You will see from it, first of all, that the beast never wrote to Meissner, and he has carried out all my commissions in the same fashion. That is precisely why I am now supposed to write to him “regularly” and you are to come to “Stuttgart”, just as he wanted to propose you as a member for the North German Reichstag! I had written to him that if all he knows about Hegel is the old Rotteck-Welcker trash, he had better hold his tongue. That he calls “breaking Hegel a little less ceremoniously over the knee, etc.”, and if he writes asininities under Engels’s articles, then “Engels can say something more detailed (!!) of course (!)”. The fellow is really too stupid. In the circular, which reached him by such a “romantic” route, it says that the General Council reserves the right to speak about Schweitzer etc. “publicly” as soon as it deems it appropriate. This Wilhelm transforms into our wishing to “declare ourselves publicly” — for Wilhelm! With regard to the next congress, what do you think of Bebel’s proposal for Mainz or Mannheim? Mainz rather. The matter would be good inasmuch as in Germany Herr Bakunin and Co. would be utterly powerless? The impertinent Wilhelm, who scarcely deems my “Bonaparte” worth a notice in his little rag, asks my permission to reprint my articles on the French Revolution! From the Marseillaise of last Sunday you will see that the Opinion Nationale, the Plon-Plon paper, has discovered that the French original of our statement, written by me, must necessarily have been written in Paris! Incidentally, I am glad that this paper is finally abandoning its protection, which it had previously granted us and which was very obnoxious to us. The old Irish women’s story is still weak compared with what the Celts in Wales achieved in that line. It was entirely (up to the 11th–12th century) Fourier’s fancy put into practice. For my birthday Kugelmann sent me two pieces of wallpaper from Leibniz’s study, which greatly amused me. You see, L.’s house was pulled down last winter, and the stupid Hanoverians — who could have done a business in relics in London — threw everything away. These two pieces of wallpaper each represent something mythological, the one Neptune in his chariot, etc., and the other Venus, Amor, etc., entirely in the bad Louis XIV taste. On the other hand, the quality (solidity) of the manufacture work of that period is confirmed, compared with today’s. I have hung both things in my study. You know my admiration for L. I am still so afflicted by the stubborn cold I caught on my last visit to Borkheim that my daughters have forbidden me to go to the General Council this evening, and threaten me, in case of disobedience, to dispatch a savage denunciation of my conduct to Fred Engels. My presence there is indeed very necessary at the moment. Enfin, nous verrons! Apropos. I recently bought a 14-volume edition of Swift (from 1760) for no more than 4½ shillings. So as soon as you need to look at Swift’s pieces on Irish matters, the relevant items will be sent to you. Is it not high time that we looked about here for a dwelling for you, and that you gave some direction in that line? Salut. Yours, K. Marx.  

The elections in France — insofar as they have any meaning — have turned out splendidly. Great and constantly repeated stupidity of the Republicans to induce the poor devils of soldiers to vote no. À quoi bon? So that the government can repeat the old joke and get to know the impure elements and weed them out. How soon will the 4,000 soldier No voters from Paris have vanished, some to Algiers, some to distant provincial penal garrisons!